Ethiopia censors UNESCO World Press Freedom Day event

New
York, May 5, 2011--Officials
in Ethiopia hijacked a local UNESCO-sponsored World Press Freedom Day event,
installing government-backed journalists as speakers and nixing independent journalists
slated to speak. There was no discussion, as originally planned, of this year's
global theme on new media and the Internet at the Tuesday forum, according to
local sources and news reports.

The program for the event at Addis
Ababa's Hilton Hotel had called for the veteran editor
of the bilingual weeklyReporter, Amare Aregawi,
to deliver a presentation on UNESCO's 2011 global theme
for World Press
Freedom Day,
"21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers,"Jean-Pierre Ilboudo, a local UNESCO regional adviser on communications, told CPJ.

Instead, after
opening
remarks by representatives of the United Nations, the African Union, and
UNESCO, and a presentation by pro-government veteran
broadcaster Mimi Sebhatu, officials
distributed an altered agenda prepared by the Office of Government
Communication Affairs. The new agenda excluded Aregawi and other scheduled moderators and speakers,
including editor Dawit Kebede, a 2010 winner of CPJ's International Press Freedom
Award, according to local journalists. They were replaced with officials and
pro-government media journalists, including journalist Biruk Kebede from the ruling EPRDF-sponsored Fana Broadcasting
Corporation, who became the event's moderator.

Independent journalists walked out in response.

"The irony of censoring World Press
Freedom Day will not be lost on the leadership of the United Nations, which has
spent the past three days emphasizing the need for freedom of expression," said
CPJ Africa Advocacy Coordinator Mohamed Keita. "By hijacking this event,
Ethiopia has again put its appalling record of media repression on display for
the whole world."

Before Tuesday, the Ethiopian Office of
Government Communication Affairs contacted organizers of the World Press
Freedom Day event and threatened todisperse
the meeting by force if the agenda wasn't amended, according to local
journalists. The office asked organizers to change out moderators like Kebede,
drop presentations critical of the authorities, and give more time to government
officials, according to local journalists. The organizers refused. On Tuesday, officials
including State Minister Shimelis Kemal, Desta Tesfaw from the
government-controlled Ethiopian Broadcasting Authority, and leaders of
government-controlled press unions like Anteneh Abraham of the Ethiopian National Journalists Union and Wondwossen Mekonnen of Ethiopian Free Journalists Association took over the event.

Tuesday's incident coincided
with CPJ's release of a report
("The 10 Tools of Online Oppressors") that highlighted the Ethiopian
government's tight control of the Internet. On that day, coincidentally,
websites discussing political dissent and human rights--which are typically
accessible only through proxy servers in Ethiopia--were suddenly unblocked,
according to local journalists.

The Ethiopian
government, which has for years censored the Internet under its stranglehold of
the country's telecom infrastructure, has shown that it is fearful of an
Egypt-style Internet-fueled popular uprising, particularly with cyber-activists calling
for mass protests in May. In February, the government briefly detained and threatened persecuted columnist Eskinder Nega
over articles that compared the popular uprising in Egypt with the 2005
anti-government protests in Ethiopia.